The Vestige

by Caroline George

  Walking through the house is like touching someone for the last time. I shuffle across the floorboards, touch the walls as if they’re Jon’s skin, Mom’s acrylic-blotched hands and Dad’s smooth cheek. This is goodbye, isn’t it? Goodbye to sameness and safety. Goodbye to a city I thought I’d never leave. Goodbye to the people who matter most to me.

  I choke on a sob when Jack opens the front door. He looks back, tears glistening in his bloodshot eyes, and nods. Time to be brave. I’ll numb the sorrow and miss them like hell in the morning.

  “Now!” Jack sprints to the awaiting van—one of those white pedophile vehicles moms tell their kids to avoid—and motions for me to follow. However, when I cross the threshold, his expression changes. He stares at my chest, eyes wide with panic. “Julie…”

  The way he says my name, as if I’m about to be lost, creates an out-of-body experience, a theatrical scene put to a musical score of heavy breathing and pounding hearts. A red dot hovers between my breasts—a laser, like that on the scope of a rifle. Jack shouts, terrified. I shift my focus from him to the sniper on the rooftop of a neighboring townhome. Oh. This is how I die.

  A single shot.

  I stumble backward and dive to the right. Too late. A bullet pierces my lower abdomen, sharp like a bee sting. The wound must be worse than it feels because blood, now my own, soaks my dress and forms a puddle on the concrete. There. It’s done. I’m dead.

  “Dammit.” Jack scoops me from the curb as more shots are fired and jumps into the van. “Go, Tally, now!” He presses his jacket against my wound to slow the bleeding. Ouch. There’s the pain. Holy crap, that hurts. I was hoping being shot would be like getting my ears pierced—once it happens, the worst part is over, leaving only a sting, and I’d die peacefully, numbed by physical trauma.

  Tires squeal as the van lurches forward. Blood surrounds me. It drenches Jack’s pants, transforms the metal floor into a pool. When will it stop flowing? How much do I have left in my veins?

  I didn’t think dying would hurt this bad.

  “What the heck happened?” The driver turns to look at me, nose upturned, scowling. Her dark hair is cropped above her shoulders and streaked with red highlights. “Jon sure has an idiot sister.”

  “Stay with me, Julie.” Jack retrieves his pocketknife and cuts off my dress, peeling away the layers of fabric to expose my gory torso. Puppy panties and a training bra, covered in blood like a horror movie victim—this definitely isn’t how I’d want him to see me naked. If I had more plasma in my body, I’d probably blush. Weird to think I may never be embarrassed again.

  “Is Jon dead?” Tally asks. “I was listening to the police scanner and…”

  “Yeah, he’s dead.”

  She curses. “We’re going to make them pay for this. How does that sound, you eavesdropping bastards? What if we … what if we run your friends over with freaking trucks? You can’t just kill us. You said if we stayed freaking quiet, you’d leave us freaking alone. You freaking screwed us over…”

  “Tally, shut up!” Jack gathers supplies from a plastic bin and squeezes my hand as if saying I’m sorry I ruined your life. All those things he said about his job were lies—he was a part of whatever got Jon killed, wasn’t he? Liar. He and Jon destroyed everything. I trusted them. I loved them. What kind of person tells someone their world isn’t unraveling when they’re the ones cutting the strands?

  “You and Jon did this,” I wheeze, “didn’t you?” Tears join the puddle. I press my hands to the bullet wound and sob between jagged gasps. “The lies you told me … it might as well have been you who pulled the trigger. You already stabbed me in the back.”

  Jack’s brow furrows and his bottom lip quivers. “What’s your blood type?” He yells over the intense rattles and rippling slosh of the red sea. Blood type. Mom didn’t tell me. She kept that sort of information stored in Dad’s filing cabinet.

  “I … don’t know.” Air leaves my lungs and doesn’t return. A metallic liquid pollutes my throat—I choke. I roll over and vomit blood. The floor’s star-shaped grooves dig into my forearm, branding me with this hell. Flesh peels off my fingers as I claw at the metal ground. How is it possible to be in so much pain? Am I breathing? Am I screaming? Maybe. Not sure. The tires crunch and squeal. Police sirens wail in the distance. They’re alive. I won’t be for much longer.

  “So if you don’t bleed out or die from sepsis, my blood will kill you. Great.” Jack kneels with an armful of first-aid kits, flashlights, and alcohol. He braces himself against a stainless steel toolbox and inserts a needle into his forearm, attaches a tube, and then connects the opposite end to my central vein.

  My dress gets wetter and the world spins, mixing blood with vomit, faces into the cosmic roar. Angry voices and sharp pain. Dust and crimson plasma. I never got to try the new brand of hazelnut flavoring that just arrived. Where did I put those shells we collected? Jon promised he would keep me safe. Liar. I’ll never believe him again.

  Jack feels beneath my ribcage. His fingers are vultures picking at my necrotic corpse. “The bullet must be lodged beneath your false ribs, within your external oblique muscle.” He uncaps a bottle of vodka. “This is going to hurt.” Before I have a chance to respond, he pours the clear liquid onto the wound. A searing pain spreads through me. Yes—I am screaming.

  Tremors of resilient determination replace the hot agony, and an icy sensation numbs my limbs. Death—this is what dying feels like, isn’t it? Help. Mom. Dad. Jon. Sybil. Save me. Please. Someone. Anyone. Don’t let me die. I’m not ready to die. I forgot to take my clothes out of the washing machine. They’ll mildew. And what will happen to Missy? When her mom gets worse, she’ll need me. Oh, I have a shift at The Grindery tomorrow. I’m catering a book club, and the new baristas can’t take my place.

  Cancer didn’t kill Sybil. The car swerved and missed Jon by inches. They’re with Mom and Dad in Waterfront Park, watching sailboats drift into the harbor. I should join them.

  “You better move fast. She’s going into shock.” Tally glances back from the driver’s seat. “Wow, that’s a lot of blood. How is she not dead yet?”

  “Be quiet.” Jack lifts the vial of alcohol to my mouth and forces me to drink. There must be something wrong with his voice. It’s muffled. Wait. Why is his face blurry? Why can’t I taste the vodka or feel pain? I really am dying. This is happening. Right now. No, I can’t die yet. God, don’t let me die. I’m too young. There’s so much I’ve yet to do.

  Jack unwraps a package of scalpels. “Stay with me, Julie.”

  I’m in the ocean, rocking back and forth with a surging current. These waves are safe, warm. They embrace me in a sort of unnatural quiet. I’ll stay and swim for a while. Maybe Jon will show up to dive for sand dollars. He likes how they fit in his hands.

  Jack removes his t-shirt and tucks the fabric between my teeth. “I don’t have any anesthetics, so once I begin surgery, you’ll feel everything. The pain’s intensity should make you pass out. Stay still. If I make a mistake, you could die.” He sticks the blade of his scalpel into my flesh and cuts.

  The wad of sweaty, blood-drenched clothing straddles my teeth like floss—putrid, boy-tasting floss. Death sears through my nervous system as Jack digs into me. It’s more severe and harrowing than anything I’ve ever felt. This is torture, torment. Dying might be better. No more suffering. No more heartbreak. I want to die now. Please let me die.

  Jack curses when a gust of blood explodes from the incision. His bare chest and arms are splattered with red. He clasps a hand over his mouth, clutches his head. He seems to be scared. Because he’s covered in me. Because I am about to leave the world. “There’s a tear in the abdominal wall. Julie, I need you to be still while I make sutures.”

  “Make her shut up,” Tally’s voice echoes with ferocious authority.

  “She hasn’t passed out yet.”

  “Duh, that’s why she is still squealing like a freaking baby. Do something.”

  Angry voices. Pain and
numbness, sharp and dull—they twist inside me. Something stifles my screams and then eyes. Those eyes, blue. No cobalt. Indigo? Azure? Sapphires? No just cold blue. Hateful eyes. Cold, hard blue eyes. Eyes that were so pretty an hour ago. Eyes that sparkled and laughed.

  He removes his hands from my torso and lifts me into his lap. “You’re not going to die. I’m a good surgeon. I will keep you alive.” His bloody fingers rest directly above my collarbone. “Don’t give up. Keep fighting. This isn’t over.” His grip tightens. The universe spirals. I’m saturated in safe, warm waves—slowly, and then all at once.

  SECOND LAYER

  Chapter Seven

  “There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

  George Orwell, 1984

  I open my eyes and clutch at the sheets. Darkness envelops me. A thick crust cakes my eyelids. Drool glues my face to a pillow. Rot. Dust. The putrid scent of old urine. I blink. A long room with low ceilings and walls covered in puke-colored paper comes into view. Stained medical screens block me from the adjoining space. Not home. Where am I? What is this place? Jon—where’s Jon?

  Sheets stick to my skin like tape. I claw at the avalanche of blankets in a desperate attempt to escape the fabric prison. The plywood floor creaks with invisible footsteps—who’s here? Nightmare. Horror house. This can’t be real.

  “Help,” I croak, squirming under the weight, and remove the mask from my face. Oxygen. Why do I need more oxygen? Tubes trail from my wrist to a bag of saline that hangs over the nightstand. I scratch the IV’s insertion site, enhancing the needle’s dull ache beneath my skin. Did something happen to me? How long have I been here?

  Pain drills into my chest and sucks me clean. My spine arches, and I choke on agony, the blood rush, as if my heart has been hibernating for weeks. The sheets fall away in relent, revealing bruised legs and a battered torso. Bloody underwear—red puppies instead of pink. Stitches crawl up my stomach, grinning with the tissue of living flesh. A throbbing sensation saturates my brain and my saliva tastes so foul, I gag. A single shot. Blood on my hands. An empty house.

  Jon.

  Empty eyes. Ribs protruding from his torso and pieces of gray matter spewing from his cracked skull. The images brand each thought that enters my mind, burning me, marking me.

  I sob and cover my mouth with a pillow, and then scream and beat my fists against the bed’s steel backboard. We were going on a date. He had that dumb smile on his face, the one I loved so much, and wore his favorite collared shirt. Smile is shattered now, in a morgue. Shirt is cut to pieces and trashed. No, God, you can’t do this to me. You can’t keep him. He is mine. And if you won’t bring him back like Lazarus, take me, too. Kill me. Do it. Please.

  Sunlight spills through the cracks in the window blinds and stings my skin. I cry into the light. Home. A bedroom with plush pillows and ocean breezes. A dream world where Jon dances with me in the kitchen and the coffee tastes like heaven—that’s where I live, not here.

  He’s dead. Dead. My parents are gone. Gone. I am alone. Completely alone. And in pain.

  Horrible pain.

  The ugly wallpaper draws me into an oblivion without ceilings or floors, only an endless expanse where I tumble deep into grief. My pain is left at the chasm’s surface. I am empty. A corpse. Dead and alive. Barely breathing. My heart is the only thing keeping me alive, and I’m pretty sure it wants to give up and join the rest of my body in a slow creep to rest.

  Nothing matters anymore.

  The screens slide apart hours later—at least, what seems like hours in my bottomless pit. Jack walks into the makeshift room, a peripheral silhouette. “You’re awake,” he says. “It’s been three days.”

  Make that four days. Five. A lifetime.

  He shuffles forward and stops at the edge of my cot. The outdoors—soil, grass, fresh air—are on his clothes, and I have to hold my breath to keep from puking. “You lost most of your blood. I gave you as much as I possibly could without keeling over but … it didn’t seem like enough to keep you alive. You’re definitely stronger than you look.” He replaces the bag of saline and examines my IV. His callused fingers are sandpaper against my skin and remind me of all I’ve lost, the lies he told, how I hate him and love him and can’t stand the sight of him. “I was able to repair the tear in your abdominal wall and the nick in your large intestine without having to perform a resection. You’re going to be all right.”

  Funny—that’s what Mom told Sybil when she was diagnosed with cancer, what Jon said the day Isaac Moore announced to my class that I should be anorexic. All right are Band-Aid words people slap on those who look like they’re close to breaking.

  “Are you hungry?” Jack peels back the blankets to inspect my stitches. He slides his hands across my abdomen, the same hands that held and sliced my organs. Sexy, huh? All girls dream of having their crush surgically remove a bullet from their gut. No. Because that’s gross. And weird. “I can bring food, if you want.” The more he shocks me with his touch, the more I want to bite off his arms.

  I roll over and yank the blankets onto my shoulders. If I’m silent, maybe he’ll leave.

  “Julie … all this is hard, I know. You’re not ready to confront the truth behind what happened. That’s okay for now—but soon, you’ll need to get out of this bed and face reality head-on. Do you have any questions for me, like, about where we are? Why Jon was killed?”

  Nothing matters anymore.

  “Talk to me, Julie. Wake up.” Jack grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. His vibrant, cobalt eyes glisten with new tears. His bottom lip quivers. “I understand your pain because I feel it, too,” he whispers with severe conviction. “I feel it.”

  Cute—he thinks our pain is equal, that losing a friend is the same as losing a brother. Everyone I love is gone, except him. But the person I thought he was died in Charleston. Now I’m stuck with a liar who kept me miles from the truth by toying with my heart.

  Jack leaves and returns a few minutes later with a plate of food. “You need to eat, Julie.”

  Nope. Food will take me further from Jon and Sybil.

  “My mom died when I was a kid,” he says, as if confessing his hurt will somehow dull mine. “I watched her die … and I couldn’t do anything to save her. We were in a car wreck. Mom was impaled in the trachea by a shard of glass. I couldn’t move so as the paramedics raced to our aid, she suffocated. Believe when I say I’ve known sorrow more than any other emotion. It scares the mess out of me to be this sad, because it seems catastrophic. Grief and fear aren’t much different. They both drag us to the brink of extinction where we have the choice to either overcome what destroys us, or be destroyed.”

  Destroyed sounds pretty good.

  Time blurs. I lose count of the sunrises and sunsets. Grief keeps me awake and puts me to sleep, fills my stomach so nothing, not even the broth Jack brings, looks edible. I don’t get up, except to drop into the corner and squat over a metal pot like an animal. Jack cleans up my mess—which somehow makes me hate him more. He leaves a lamp at night, as if the light will keep me from slipping further into darkness, prevent ghosts from entering my nightmares. Liar. Backstabber. Jerk…

  Who does for me what I once did for Mom. Who shows love, not the gushy love people like to talk about, but the real love that motivates soldiers to charge into battle and wakes up parents in the middle of night to feed their babies. Real love that endures even when it’s fought, cursed, and hated.

  “Oh, shut up,” someone shouts during one of my sob sessions. “I want to sleep. Shut up before I slice your throat.” The outburst is followed by a shoe slamming against the nearest divider.

  I’m not alone in here.

  Jack visits three times a day to bring food and examine my stitches. He talks to me—I didn’t realize boys could talk so freaking much—but I block his voice with daydreams of waves lapping at my ankles, silver fish, and Jon’s stomach-cramping laugh. Our perfect par
adise is a sepia film reel in the back of my head, playing our lives in sync, all the smiles and tears, the blazing sunlight and hurricanes. He was the infinity that made my world spin, the sun and stars. He was everything, and now I have nothing. Nothing but the memories and a deep, deep wound.

  “Up, Levi.”

  I flinch when a German Shepherd climbs from the floor and settles into the space next to me. His body is an oven, burning the deathly cold from my bones. He sniffs me, licks my cheek. Why is he a nice dog? I’d rather he bite because a kiss from him makes me want to cry again.

  “He’ll protect you,” Jack says, “from the memories and anything else that frightens you.”

  I comb my hands through the animal’s thick fur and hug his body. With him I’m warm, safe. Dogs are like that, I guess—they know how to fix you without ever saying a word.

  Another sunrise. Another sunset.

  Jack lies next to me, denting the thin mattress. “Why won’t you talk, Julie?” His breath caresses the back of my neck. “What’s going on inside that head of yours?”

  Sand swallows my toes as the ocean wars with itself, devouring and dispersing in a schizophrenic display of bulimia. Tourists pass in crowds of sameness, unified in unimportance, but each entity individual and monumental in its own mind. Jon chases Sybil into the surf. They tell me to come join them, and I want more than anything to wade toward their arms.

  “You’re killing yourself. Why? Do you feel guilty for what happened? You’re not to blame for any of this.” He shakes me hard. “Julie, you can’t quit.”

  The sea calms to let me inside its wild embrace. I paddle through foam, dive beneath the turquoise surface, and reach out my hand to Jon. Come on. Take hold.

  “Okay, shut me out. That’s fine. You can die if you want, but I choose to stay alive. Whoever killed Jon deserves justice. I’m going to give it to them.”